Job-seekers scramble for opportunities at exhibition

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Lely, 27, was standing in a line for nearly two hours together with thousands of other job-seekers before she finally managed to enter the job expo venue inside the Peninsula Hotel in Slipi, West Jakarta on Tuesday.

Lely, a holder of a bachelor's degree in agriculture from a private university in Yogyakarta, then joined hundreds of job- seekers, most of whom were recent college graduates to browse the jobs offered inside by 36 companies taking part in the fair.

"It is my fourth visit to such a job fair. In each fair, I've submitted around five to 10 applications, but none of companies invited me for an interview," Lely, who graduated in late 2002, told The Jakarta Post.

Soon after her graduation, she left her hometown in Yogyakarta to live with her brother in Cawang subdistrict, East Jakarta with hopes of finding a job.

Like other people coming from outside Jakarta, Lely thought that she could find a job more easily here. But she has begun to realize that finding a job was not so easy, even though she has been looking for more than two years here.

Lely was not alone. According to the head of the Jakarta manpower agency Ali Zubeir, nearly one million people in the capital were unemployed last year.

Over 2.5 million job-seekers, according to the Center for Labor and Development Studies, are produced each year nationally, while the country can absorb some 1.1 million jobs per annum, leaving at least 1.4 million new job-seekers in the lurch.

The data is backed up by the huge crowds that throng to such job expos.

In the on-going expo, which will wind up on Wednesday, job- seekers can submit as many application forms as possible after they buy a Rp 30,000 entry ticket. There, they can fill out forms prepared by companies or submit complete applications, prepared before they enter the venue.

Aan, 25, an information technology (IT) graduate from Gadjah Mada University, also in Yogyakarta, for example, submitted 15 applications to different companies at the job fair organized by the JobsDB.com.

"I hope I will be invited for an interview by some of those companies," said Aan, who graduated late last June.

Like Lely and hundreds of other applicants, Aan, however, realized that he should not expect much because he would be competing with literally millions of rivals.

There are still many job-seekers with a lot of work experience, who have been laid off due to the economic crisis.

He will also be competing against people who are seeking a better job, like Ami, 27, a holder of a secretarial certificate, who has been working for a small company in Central Jakarta.

Ami, a resident of Kebon Jeruk in West Jakarta, said she had twice visited such a job expo. In Tuesday's fair, she submitted 10 applications.

"In the previous fair in Senayan, (Central Jakarta), I submitted five applications. I got no responses. With these applications I submitted today, I hope that I will be invited for an interview," said Ami, who was seeking a better job because she was currently paid only Rp 500,000 per month -- lower than the Rp 711,848 provincial minimum wage.

Hendra, a employee with JObsDB.com, however, stressed that there was no guarantee that companies taking part in the fair would invite applicants for interviews.

"We just facilitate the meeting. It is up to each company to invite the applicants or not," he told the Post.